Directed By Jordan Peele

Starring – Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Brandon Perea

The Plot – The residents of a lonely gulch in inland California bear witness to an uncanny and chilling discovery.

Rated R for adult language throughout and some violence/bloody images

NOPE | Official Trailer – YouTube

POSITIVES

With his third feature film, Peele completely reinvents the alien invasion angle with a rich combination of technical and creative tapestries that help to flesh out an experience that lives and breathes on the unnerving aspect of its audience from beyond. What’s most surprising about this is the straightforward nature of its narrative, choosing this time to mostly omit the subversive elements of his commentary that often-provided enhanced depth to the material, and instead here leaves every quality of influential filmmaking as the pulse that generates an array of emotions toward what’s transpiring on-screen. Because of such, Peele conjures a surprising amount of comedic value in both the dialogue and awkwardness of the characters’ vulnerabilities, but never the kind that truly compromises the integrity of the conflict, leaving much of the ominous and atmospheric dread of our foreign invaders felt as something potentially world-ending or at the very least bleak because of the ambiguous nature of their appearance. None of the horror settles for cheap jump scares, instead absorbing itself in the technical merits of a blanketed and boisterously echoing sound design that not only amplifies terror in the influence of the engagement transpiring, but also helps to flesh out some unique aspects of the spaceship that audibly convey the terror and stakes of the many people onboard who have fallen victim to its sweeping beam. In addition to this, the subtlety of the special effects is especially impressive, considering a majority of the pivotal sequences take place during the daytime. The ship itself blends in seamlessly to the blue skies and dominant cloud cover, and the ensuing carnage of its mayhem articulates a boldness for believability so rampant that it feels practical in the air of its influential devastation, made more transferrable with the wide angles lenses that could’ve easily emitted the artificiality of its captures. On the cinematography by the great Hoyte Van Hoytema, we’re treated to a consistency in speed and technique movements that mirror the unraveling dread of its accommodating sequences, thanks in part to the extensive ratio of IMAX camera capturing, with a contradicting claustrophobia during scenes inside of the ship that illustrate the helpless smothering of its various victims. On a side note, I loved the creativity assembled for the feeding of this ship, and how it felt like its own living, breathing entity due to the lack of revealing anything beyond the exterior of the ship itself. This leaves matters mostly ambiguous for the outline of the antagonists, which proves Peele has learned a lot about horror films in his studying, in that revealing too much can take away from the mystique of an influence, and thankfully instead here chooses to divert away from the precedents of a genre that almost unanimously still hasn’t attained the same knowledge. However, not all of the prestige resides in the productions many capable hands, but also in the talented duo before us, with one surprising film-stealing turn in the form of Ms. Kiki Palmer. It’s tough enough to outperform Kaluuya on any given day, but Kiki manages with a boldness and vibrancy in personality that elicits a lot of those brief instances of levity to keep the narrative accessible, all the while flipping the switch while churning out a terrified demeanor that conjures empathy in the experience of the audience invested in her helpless plight. Kaluuya isn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination, just reserved compared to Palmer, but still maintaining the same screen presence and captivity in the powerful impact of his deliveries that not only maintain your attention faithfully long before his dialogue is spoken, but also cementing a resiliency in his characterization that make him the kind of intimidating hero needed against such adversity.

NEGATIVES

While “Nope” is another success for Peele in the early stages of an inevitably tremendous career, it is a noticeable step back from “Get Out” and “Us” because of a couple of floundering occasions that undercut the capabilities of this film’s impact. The first is definitely the editing, which feels like it suffers from a little bit of “Godzilla (2014)” syndrome, in that it cuts away from a sequence during the moment that pay-off is being attained. At first, it’s obviously intentional to build towards the conflict that eventually reveals the bigger picture, but it soon becomes apparent that it’s here to stay with conflict sequences being stitched together with such sloppiness that periodically undercut the detectability of my investment. In addition to this, the storytelling consistency of the narrative has all sorts of problems with settling into the momentum needed to justify the over two hour run time. It starts with a plodding opening act that starts but eventually forgets to illustrate compelling backstory in the air of its characters, then switches to an individualized format that overcomplicates the necessity. Chapters themselves are fine in any film, but when this one moves in and out of various timelines to convey information that I honestly didn’t see as vital to the storytelling, it starts to convolute the execution, taking too much away from the conflict before us to instill layers to a character that I honestly couldn’t care less about, and one that doesn’t stick around for the long run. Finally, while Peele does his best to evade nearly every trope of the science fiction and horror genres, respectively, there’s an abundance of conveniences littered throughout that worked overtime in the natural progression of the exposition. For my money, some of the ways that Kaluuya’s character correctly interpreted the belly of the beast, with all of its weaknesses and aspects, felt a bit too flimsy for my preferences, which directly undercut the vulnerability of their predicament for a climax that never attained the same stakes and circumstances so firmly supplanted during those initial attacks.

OVERALL
“Nope” isn’t a resounding yep, but it is another opportunistic example of Peele’s artistically versatile range as a commanding storyteller, with some of the most original aspects of creativity deposited wonderfully to the alien invasion subgenre. Though the pacing is inconsistent, and the editing undercuts more than a few payoffs in imagery and engagement, the film does continue with it the same jaw-dropping audacity that Peele has continuously elicited as a ferociously fierce filmmaker, even when his creative reach periodically exceeds his commanding grasp.

My Grade: 7/10 or B-